


sealed upon our pact

by GalaxyOwl



Series: beloved [2]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, F/F, background Grand/Echo and Even/Cascabel, spoilers through the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 14:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOwl/pseuds/GalaxyOwl
Summary: Signet's soulmate is not exactly what she expected. But if she really thinks about it, maybe it should have been.





	sealed upon our pact

She knew her name long before she knew that’s what it would be.

The words were as natural to her as breathing. _They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact, it is good to finally meet you_. Tiny, intricate lettering across the length of her arm. When she was little—old enough to demand to know what it said, but too young to understand what it meant—it always confused her. That last bit seemed so totally disconnected.

It isn’t until she stumbles across the line in the Assemblages that she understands. It’s not just random poetics; it’s an excerpt from a holy text. It’s a _name_.

Her fate from that point on was never in question.

Which isn’t to say that she only decided to become an excerpt because she already knew she was going to. Or maybe it is; it’s hard to draw that line, at a certain point. But she liked to think that the calling appeals to her for its own sake. As a way to help people.

Either way, she works her way through school, through training, through service. She never doubts it, not then. This is what she’s meant for.

It wasn’t known, at first, which Divine she would be excerpt of. That was a question for once she’d had more training, for once she was fully prepared for the task to come and could begin to worry about the specialized skills working with particular Divines might require.

So it comes as a shock when she’s awoken in the middle of the night and told that Belgard’s last excerpt was lost in battle and she needs to come now, and fast, and does she have a name picked out?

Of course she does.

The ceremony is rushed and somber at the same time, and her mind spins with the weight of it all—the death of a mentor; the sharp, sudden knowledge of her future. Gumption’s excerpt, who from the look of them was dragged out of bed for this ceremony just as unexpectedly as her, smiles at her from across the room as the Cadent Over Mirage finishes speaking.

Then it’s over, and Signet fixes her attention on the Divine in front of her.

“Go on,” the Cadent says, and Signet steps inside.

The interior of Belgard’s cockpit might as well be a different planet. It’s a different kind of quiet altogether from the ceremony, the worried murmurs of the witnesses vanished and replaced by only the faintest mechanical beeps, a near-silent percussion in the background of it all, like a heartbeat.

“They marked scars of light in pitch; born in fiercest purpose, and beheld as the signet sealed upon our pact,” says a voice from all around her (that name—that _name_ , which is truly hers at last), “it is good to finally meet you.”

Signet freezes. She hadn’t expected Belgard to complete the phrase. The fact that she greeted Signet by her new excerpt name made sense, and Signet knew that that was always going to be the name that her soulmate knew her by. But that doesn’t mean—she never _assumed_ —

Well, but why not?

Signet is suddenly aware she hasn’t said anything yet. This is her moment; these are her and Belgard’s Words. (Belgard doesn’t have actual, written words, Signet is sure. She’s never heard of a Divine having any, and most synthetic folks don’t either. But regardless of whether or not they exist physically, Signet and Belgard will know. What she says now _counts_.)

“Hello,” she says aloud, her voice barely above a whisper. And then she has no idea what else to say, so she says the next true thing that pops into her head: “You’re beautiful.”

For a moment, Belgard doesn’t react, and Signet tenses, sure she’s overstepped. Then a sound echoes through the space, and the holographic displays hanging up above Signet flicker a hundred colors, and she realizes after a moment that Belgard is _laughing_.

“I’m sorry,” Signet says. “Was that out of line?”

“Not... exactly,” Belgard says, after a moment. “Simply unconventional.”

There’s a good chance that Belgard doesn’t know. Signet has known her Words her whole life, but there’s no reason for Belgard to know. “Everything about this situation is unconventional,” Signet says, and she pulls up her sleeve.

She doesn’t know how Belgard “sees” the inside of the cockpit, doesn’t know where the camera is, but a vocal silence follows and Signet feels sure that the Divine has seen and understood.

Her heart pounds in her chest as the silence ticks on. Maybe Belgard will say she’s wrong; maybe she won’t care. Like Signet said, it’s unconventional. Maybe there are rules about your soulmate also being your excerpt and Signet will have to give this up, and it isn’t until she has that thought that she realizes how much it terrifies her. How much standing in this space already feels _right_.

“You are correct,” Belgard says finally, “in that assessment.”

Signet smiles.

“As I said, it is good to meet you,” Belgard says, “Signet.”

***

It’s not completely unprecedented, she discovers, once she starts looking into it. There are records of other Divines with soulmates. Sometimes it’s their excerpt, sometimes it isn’t.

Still, it isn’t exactly a type of relationship Signet grew up expecting to have. Or, it is: she was trained for this since she was a child. But somehow the knowledge (and it is knowledge; it’s easy for this kind of situation where only one of a pair has the physical Words to be somewhat ambiguous, but Signet can’t see how that could be the case here) that they’re soulmates changes things. She feels as if their relationship should be somehow _more_ than that between any other excerpt and Divine, but she doesn’t really know what she means by that.

No set of soulmates’ relationship is like another, not really. It’s less about the type of relationship than it is the intensity, the truth—and Signet knows this, has known it all her life, but somehow she can’t seem to convince herself that she isn’t doing something wrong by treating her position as excerpt as what it is: a job.

Except.

Except that Signet feels more at home at Belgard’s controls than she has anywhere else in her life. Except that acrobatics in the heat of a battle exhilarate her like nothing else. Except that sometimes after a long day she falls asleep right there, in her jumpsuit, and just before she drifts off she almost swears she can hear music playing. There is no physical presence in the cockpit with her, but she can feel Belgard there all the same.

Signet doesn’t know if that’s what love is supposed to be like, but she thinks, maybe. Maybe for her it is.

***

Signet is pretty sure that she loves her, so when Belgard tells her to leave, she goes.

***

They recovered the body, Blooming tells her. That’s the word she uses, too. _Body_ , not a broken machine but a bloodied corpse. They recovered the body, but, “I’m sorry, Signet. She’s gone.”

Signet shouldn’t have left her. She should have known this would happen, that Belgard would overextend herself, should’ve known that it was all so fucking fragile.

Contrition’s Figure is a good a place as any to mourn.

Over time, Signet divides her life into before Belgard, and after Belgard. She is still an excerpt in everything but name, but she’s also a public figure whose soulmate has just died. She gets looks—some pitying, some bitter—as she moves through the Fleet, and it’s years before they go away. But she has years. Belgard made sure of that.

Now, Signet takes a sharp breath, her footsteps echoing on the cockpit floor. She clambers towards the center of the room, but it’s an awkward motion; it’s a space not built for standing, but for constant motion, zero-G maneuvering inside and out. No need for that now, of course, but she can’t stop herself from running a hand along the controls. She isn’t sure what would happen if she tried to activate them—how much of a Divine is the machine itself, and how much is that deeper something?

What is she doing here?

It’s been years since she—well, since Belgard died. Years, though not many, really. Not for an excerpt’s lifespan.

It’s funny. She thought it would be harder to get in here. Security had to be pretty tight, didn’t it? You can’t have just anyone running around inside a dead Divine. But no one stopped her. No one even questioned her. The one guard on duty this late at night just nodded at her as she entered. She can only assume they recognized her.

Signet’s still not sure why she came. She just knows that something drew her here; more than memory, or guilt, a connection tying her back to Belgard, always.

She shakes her head, blinks. The space around her is dark, without any of Belgard’s lights to illuminate it, and Signet sets herself down on the not-quite-floor, her back against the warm metal wall.

She shuts her eyes. If she concentrates hard enough, she can almost imagine that when she opens them, Belgard will be up and running again, information criss-crossing a hundred holographic displays, a comforting voice whispering in her ear. The image is so clear it’s almost real, as if she could reach out and touch the displays, as if she could pilot this beautiful machine right out into space again. Signet knows that she can’t, that it isn’t real, but that doesn’t stop a calm from settling into her chest.

The quiet of the empty Divine is eerie, but it’s peaceful, too, and slowly, she drifts off, this picture of Belgard spinning through her mind.

***

Another night, the same thing—weeks later or months or years, it doesn’t really matter. She tries not to make a habit of it, but she can’t deny the comfort of the familiar space, especially on the days when it feels like the Fleet is on the verge of falling apart around her. There are worse coping mechanisms, she supposes.

Sleep comes easily. Signet dreams.

In her dream, Belgard is flying, alive as ever, and Signet is twisting and turning and tumbling and they are the most in sync that they have ever been. “It’s good to finally meet you,” Belgard says. “You’re beautiful,” Signet says. And they are flying fast but they are not in battle, they are not on a mission, they just _are_ , Signet-and-Belgard, a perfect, wild being.

And then Belgard says, “Signet, you need to leave,” and the Mirage around them shatters into a thousand cracked-glass pieces but Signet stays right where she is as Belgard tears herself apart. “Signet,” she says. “Signet, Signet—“

When Signet awakes with a gasp, she swears for an instant she can still hear Belgard's voice.

And there is a light blinking on the display panel. It flashes, on and off, on and off, the only light in the dark space, and Signet stares at it in dumbfounded silence.

Belgard is dead. She is, that’s a _fact_. Signet was trying to to move on with her life, even if she wasn’t always succeeding. But there’s a light flashing on the display panel.

Signet maneuvers herself closer to it, but she already knows what the indicator is. Sleep mode. If Belgard were still alive, all Signet would have to do now to wake her would be to ask. She’s not alive. But—and Signet hates to even give herself this sliver of hope—what if she is?

Her voice trembles as she says her Divine’s true name aloud.

Then: “Signet.”

Clearer this time, real and undeniable, and Signet crumples into tears.

***

Years later.

“Does Volition have a soulmate, do you think?” Grand Magnificent asks, absolutely unprompted. They’re walking across the surface of Volition, on foot for the moment as they scout the immediate vicinity. Grand and Even beside Signet, with everyone else back by the vehicles. Out of the corner of her eye she can still make out Belgard’s form, high above, and there’s comfort in that.

“No?” Even says. “I’m gonna go ahead and go with no.”

“It’s something like a Divine, though, isn’t?”

Signet can feel their eyes on her as Grand says this. She sighs. “If… If something like Volition has a soulmate… I think it would have to be something like it. I don’t think it could be anything human enough to be marked.” She pauses. “Though I’ve been wrong before.”

“Maybe its soulmate is Independence,” Even says.

Signet’s pretty sure he means it as a joke, but neither of them laugh. “The Iconoclasts certainly think so,” she says, low.

They continue forward a couple of moments in silence.

“Hey, Even!” Cascabel’s voice comes from behind them. “Do you think you can you come look at this? The engine’s having trouble.”

Even stops, and looks at Signet and Grand. “Will you two be alright without me?”

“We’ll be fine.” Signet finds herself smiling. “Go on.”

Even nods, and turns back towards where the others are still resting. Grand’s gaze follows him for a long moment.

“They’re cute,” Signet offers, as she starts walking again. She’s been able to gather over their time on Volition that Cascabel and Even met only recently, on Quire. They’re still in the process of figuring out what being soulmates means for them. She probably would have figured it out even if no one had told her—it’s in the little glances they give each other when the other isn’t looking, the way they are (like right now) constantly coming up with excuses to find time together.

“I guess,” Grand says.

Signet and Grand continue walking a while, the only sound their footsteps on Volition’s strange surface.

“Hey, you—“ Grand says, and then stops. Signet glances towards him, waiting for him to elaborate. “You and Belgard have known one another for a while, right?”

“You could say that, yes,” Signet says slowly.

“Right,” Grand says. “Did you guys—were you always so…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“‘So’ what?”

“I guess, like, sure of it?”

Signet looks at him. “If by ‘it’ you mean our relationship?”

“I guess? I’m not sure that really conveys the _nuance_ of what I was trying to—“

“What’s your point, Grand?”

He blinks. “Well, were you?”

“I…” Signet has to think about it. She keeps walking. “It wasn’t always like what it is now,” she says after a moment. “And what it is now isn’t what it was like before she…” Even now that Belgard’s back, Signet can’t bring herself to say _died_. “Before she was out of commission, for a while there. But she’s my soulmate, Grand.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know. It’s just that you two make it look so… _Easy_.”

That’s when it clicks. Grand Magnificent has come to her for _relationship advice_. “And it’s not for you?”

“Echo’s just… They’re…” Grand groans.

“You don’t like them?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then explain.”

“It’s complicated.”

Signet sighs. “Would you rather I just go ask Even later?” This Echo, if Signet remembers correctly, was another member of the party sent down to Quire; Cascabel and Even might be able to help fill in the gaps here.

“I’m pretty sure he’d side with them.”

“There are _sides_?”

“No! I mean, I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Grand—“

“It’s just—they think that the two of us aren’t… I mean. I don’t know why they _wouldn’t_ want to be my soulmate. So maybe the only plausible explanation is they’re right. Maybe the whole system got it wrong. Do you think that’s possible?”

Signet examines Grand’s expression, trying to get a sense of what any of that could _possibly_ mean, but all she knows is that he’s the most sincere she’s ever heard him. “Look,” she says, softly. “If you and—Echo, you said, was their name? If you and Echo are really soulmates, then giving it some time isn’t going to hurt anything. It’ll work out whenever it does. You shouldn’t stress over it, and you shouldn’t pressure them.” It sounds like good advice, she thinks. But Grand was right in what he’d been asking about at first; Signet and Belgard never really had this kind of problem.

“Right,” Grand says. “Thanks.” He doesn’t sound like he believes her.

(Signet can’t stop thinking about it, afterwards. “Hey,” she says, as she leans her back against Belgard’s side. “Do you think Volition has a soulmate?”)

***

What is a Divine without a Fleet?

Signet knows, of course, that there were Divines before there was a Fleet. But for her entire lifetime _the Divine Fleet_ has been a single, indivisible phrase. And now it is gone, and there is only the strangeness of the Quire System.

“There are still people,” Belgard says, gently. “We still have a duty to these people, Fleet or no Fleet.” She’s right, of course, as always.

“Still,” Signet says, a while later, “it’s strange to be...” To be what? To be free agents, she supposes. To be Signet-and-Belgard after so long of being Signet the Beloved agent. But now Tender and Fourteen have run off together, as more or less everyone knew they eventually would, once they stopped pacing circles around the whole soulmate thing—now Tender and Fourteen have run off and Signet never realized it was possible to still feel so alone when the person who’s most important to you is still right here.

But she does.

They help people. Signet works hard. Sometimes she is away from Belgard, and that is difficult, but it is what must be done to further their goal, so she tolerates it. Still, even if Signet spends the entire week training members of the First Exponent and Belgard spends it three planets away helping recycle the remnants of an NEH transport ship for use in city infrastructure, they always see each other again.

Signet falls asleep in the cockpit, the quiet whirring of Belgard’s internal computers lulling her to sleep. It’s not something she ever did before, not when Belgard was alive. She had her own quarters, as an excerpt, and they were very nice. But she can’t help but find comfort now in Belgard’s closeness, after so long. Belgard comments on it, once, and Signet stumbles through this explanation before realizing that the real answer is “I love you.”

Belgard isn’t the only remaining Divine, of course. There’s Bounty, now, and a couple weeks ago they and their excerpt did stop by to say hello and pepper Signet with questions about what the hell their new position really entails. They’re not a very traditional excerpt by any means, Signet thinks, but they believe in what they’re doing and that’s the important part.

Then there’s the excerpt without a Divine.

“Are you worried about Blooming?” Belgard asks her, at one point, while they’re in transit across the system.

“I’m... not sure,” Signet says. “Not actively, I suppose.” She hasn’t spoken with Blooming since Volition. Guilt stabs through her. “Are you?”

“A little.”

“Why?”

A pause. “I suppose, mostly because I expected you to be.”

Signet laughs.

“You went a very long time thinking I was dead,” Belgard says. “Now Blooming has to live with the truth of Empyrean’s death.”

She’s right, of course. She usually is.

It’s not completely comparable. Signet’s pretty sure that Empyrean wasn’t Blooming’s soulmate. Although, and the thought hits Signet with a quiet horror, maybe she _was_. Blooming’s never told Signet what her Words are.

***

“I’ve been approached by this... individual,” Blooming says. “She says she wants to find use for my skills as an excerpt. She says...” Blooming trails off. “She has a vision for this system—or, no. For the Fleet. She has a vision of it being a Fleet again.”

“Blooming...” Signet says.

“I don’t need you to believe her,” Blooming says. “Just me.”

Signet looks at her, trying to read her expression. “You’re alright, then?”

“I am.” Blooming hesitates a moment, and then adds, “It’s hard sometimes. But it’s easier now that I don’t have to pretend that it isn’t.”

Signet hates that Blooming felt like she had to pretend.

“Alright,” she says softly. “Just, Prince—“ A smile tugs at the corner of Blooming’s lip. “Promise me you won’t do anything _too_ foolish.”

***

Signet can’t sleep. Which isn’t unusual, these days. After everything that happened. After Tender and Anticipation and Iota and Blueberri and _Grand_ —

Everything is falling apart. Or, no; Signet’s pretty sure it was never together to begin with. Fuck, but if there’s one thing she’s learned in the past few months it’s that nothing that she thought was certain can be relied on to continue to be so. Kamala Cadence thought—thinks—that Divines aren’t people and at that point who the hell knows what’s really going on? Who the hell even cares?

Signet sits up in bed and runs a hand through her hair with a sigh. She’s done trying, is the thing. Done pretending that she knows how to fix any of this.

 _Signet._ A voice in her head, like a warm embrace. Like a loving look you’d give someone. Signet takes a deep breath. Belgard doesn’t say anything else, and Signet doesn’t know how to begin this particular conversation.

She closes her eyes a moment, breathes in again, and when she opens them she’s in Belgard’s cockpit.

“Signet,” Belgard says, her electronic voice full of the warmth of a hundred years’ quiet love. “Are you alright?”

Signet has come here with the intention of—well, she hadn’t really thought about what her intention was. It had been more instinct than anything. But she’d thought that maybe just being here would be enough, that she would be able to get to sleep. It’s late, and she wants to ask if this can wait until morning. If it were anyone else, she would.

But instead she lays a hand on the wall of the room, feels the dull thrum of power coursing through the Divine body. “Probably not,” she says.

And it all spills out. Some verbally, some only in fractured thoughts and emotions poured into Belgard through their connection. Belgard takes it all in.

When she’s finished, though, Belgard doesn’t respond, and Signet doesn’t push. She wonders if maybe she’s overstepped, and for a moment she’s herself at seventeen again, worrying she’s offended her new partner. But the feeling passes as quickly as it comes, and it isn’t long before Signet is drifting towards sleep.

“You don’t have to save the entire system,” Belgard says, dragging Signet into wakefulness. She blinks, welcoming the familiar sight of the cockpit’s blinking lights. She takes a moment to actually process Belgard’s words, and says, “I know that. I was just telling Blueberri that. We have to do good where we can.”

“Yes,” Belgard says. “Maybe your problem, then, is not with what you’re doing but with where you are.”

“I don’t really feel like there’s anywhere else left to go,” Signet says. “Even if—even though you’re right. I don’t know that I want to be _here_ anymore.”

It feels like giving up, to admit that. She can’t bring herself to care. More than anything, it feels freeing.

“Then lets go somewhere else,” Belgard says, and Signet’s confidence evaporates.

“We don’t have to leave just because I want to,” she says. “I don’t want to take you away from...”

“No,” Belgard says. “I have been thinking about this for a long while. I think it’s the right decision.”

Neither of them have said it out loud. Obviously they can’t leave the Mirage just by deciding it. That isn’t what this is about. Instead they can take steps towards it, can make a declaration of their intent by where they go and who they associate with.

“Okay,” Signet says. She closes her eyes, lays her palm flat against the metal of Belgard’s hull.

Sleep comes easily, after that.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr & twitter @confusedbluesky if you want to come shout about fatt with me


End file.
